Fabulous Orients Fictions of the East in England 1662-1785

by Ballaster, Ros

• ISBN13: 9780199234295
• ISBN10: 0199234299
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-06
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Narrative moves. Stories migrate from one culture to another, over vast distances sometimes, but their path is often difficult to trace and obscured by time. Fabulous Orients looks at the traffic of narrative between Orient and Occident in the eighteenth century, and challenges the assumption that has dominated since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) that such traffic is always one-way. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Born in Bombay, India, in 1962, Ros Ballaster has had an abiding interest in eastern culture and narrative. She was a visiting Fellow at Harvard University 1988-89; Lecturer in English Literature at University of East Anglia 1989-1993; and Leverhulme Major Research Fellow 2000-2003. She is currently College and University Fellow in English Literature at Mansfield College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Abbreviations	p. xiii
Narrative Moves	p. 1
Dinarzade, the second string	p. 1
The state of narrative	p. 7
Shape-Shifting: Oriental Tales	p. 25
Fadlallah and Zemroude: transmigratory desires	p. 25
The framed sequence	p. 32
Travellers' tales	p. 36
Fictional letters	p. 41
Histories	p. 45
Heroic drama	p. 52
A passion for tales	p. 57
Tales of the Seraglio: Turkey and Persia	p. 59
Roxolana: the loquacious courtesan	p. 59
Speaking likenesses: Turkey and Persia	p. 70
Loquacious women I: staging the Orient	p. 83
Loquacious women II: narrating the Orient	p. 95
Speculative men I: spies and correspondents	p. 145
Speculative men II: court secrets	p. 171
'Fabulous and Romantic': the 'Embassy Letters' and 'The Sultan's Tale'	p. 179
'Bearing Confucius' Morals to Britannia's Ears': China	p. 193
Tourandocte, the riddling princes	p. 193
Chinese whispers	p. 202
Orphans and absolutism: tragedies of state	p. 208
Empire of Dulness	p. 218
Narrative transmigrations	p. 227
Chinese letters of reason	p. 242
Madness and civilization	p. 252
'Dreams of Men Awake': India	p. 254
Canzade: the illusory sati	p. 254
India as Illusion	p. 263
'The dreaming Priest': Aureng-Zebe	p. 275
The treasures of the East: Indian tales	p. 292
Tales of India: weaving illusions	p. 295
The Indian fable: rational animals	p. 343
Waking from the dream	p. 358
Epilogue: Romantic Revisions of the Orient	p. 360
Bibliography	p. 376
Index	p. 393
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